Philip Green (Gregory Peck) is a widowed journalist who has moved to New York City with his mother and son. He is looking to get started writing with a magazine, and gets an assignment that makes him wish he didn't ask. His publisher, John (Albert Dekker), wants Philip to write an "anti-anti-Semitism" article. Philip talks it over with his mother (Anne Revere, whose character's name is never said) and son, Tommy (Dean Stockwell), over dinner. Tommy doesn't know what it means, so Philip explains it to him. Tommy thinks it's dumb for anyone to not like anyone else just because they're Jewish. Philip later thinks of an old friend of his, Dave Goldman (John Garfield), who is Jewish. Philip realizes he can get a ton of firsthand information from Dave, who no doubt has been victimized by anti-Semitism, but then stops himself because he feels it wouldn't be fair to ask Dave such questions. A short time later, Philip realizes he can't fully understand what Jews are experiencing without actually experiencing it himself. The idea now is clear to Philip: He will pretend to be Jewish. The next day, Philip agrees to do the article, but asks John to keep it secret that he is only pretending to be Jewish. Philip concludes that since he's just moved to NYC, no one would know he was or wasn't anyway, so he may as well keep his actual religion a secret between just he, his family and John. From this point on, Philip Green goes by the name of Philip Greenberg.
Meanwhile, Philip has also gotten romantically involved with John's niece, Kathy (Dorothy McGuire), who Philip eventually learns was the person who originally proposed the idea for this article to the magazine. Despite this, when Philip decides to share the information that he's pretending to be Jewish for the article, Kathy is a little taken aback and needs to be reassured that he's only pretending. It turns out that while Kathy may not be anti-Semitic per se, she still obviously finds the potential of her dating a Jew to be troublesome.
Philip arrives at his office and finds he has been given a secretary for the duration of his article-writing. The secretary, Elaine (June Havoc), tells him she specifically requested this position when she learned of the story because she herself is Jewish. To Philip's dismay, he does the math and realizes that Elaine has learned that he's Jewish (but thinks it is true). He asks how she knew, and she says word got around the office that he was Jewish. Philip finds this interesting and files it away in his mental notes, but what he finds even more interesting is the story Elaine relays of how she got the job. She first applied under her real Jewish name and received a reply saying there were no openings. She then immediately re-applied under the non-Jewish name, and here she is employed.
Philip is shocked by this and brings the matter to John, his publisher, who is just as shocked to learn this. John reams out his hiring department and immediately decrees a memo to everyone in the company that all are welcome to apply for work at his magazine. Philip is proud of this but Elaine, surprisingly, is worried that the "wrong type of Jews" will start working there and ruin it for the Jews there now. Like Kathy earlier, Elaine turns out to have some anti-Semitic characteristics herself despite being on Philip's side in regards to his article.
Philip continues researching and developing his findings as he continues pretending to be Jewish. One morning, he gets a phone call from his old friend Dave, who has just moved to NYC for a new job. Philip immediately offers him a place to stay while Dave apartment-hunts so he can move his family to NYC with him. Dave is having more trouble than most, however, because of him being Jewish. When Dave arrives, Philip opens up to him about the article. Dave is supportive but seems somewhat lax about it, thinking this is just the way things are and the article won't really accomplish much. Philip hopes to prove him wrong.
Throughout the film, Philip continues to experience incidents of bigotry. When his mother becomes ill with a heart condition, the doctor discourages him from consulting a specialist with an obviously-Jewish name, suggesting he might be cheated. When Phil reveals that he is himself Jewish, the doctor backpedals on his earlier statements, but almost immediately leaves rather uncomfortably. Kathy's sister (Jane Wyatt) invites her and Philip to a party up in her Connecticut home which is in a town that isn't Jew-friendly. Kathy tells her sister that Philip is only pretending to be Jewish, but as it turns out a number of people cancel attending the party at the last minute when they learn a Jew will be in attendance. While at a restaurant with Philip, Dave is slurred by a drunkard and nearly pummels the man, but holds himself back. Philip gets engaged to Kathy, but learns that the honeymoon suite they've booked is a hotel that does not rent to Jews. He arrives at that hotel a day earlier than planned, but when the staff learn he's Jewish, the room suddenly is unavailable. All of these things anger Philip, but he handles them.
Things eventually do come to a head, however, Tommy is attacked by some other kids and called a dirty Jew. Tommy is upset but Kathy consoles him by telling him it isn't true, he isn't any more Jewish than she is. Philip is greatly angered with her words, which seem to indicate it's bad to be Jewish. On top of this, Dave tells Philip he's going to have to quit his new job because he can't find housing for his family. Kathy has a vacant house in Connecticut next door to her sister, but she's uneasy with renting it to him because it might make the neighbors uncomfortable. Philip reaches his breaking point by now. He and Kathy break off their engagement, and Philip decides it's time to publish the article, and then get the hell out of NYC.
The article does get published. It is a huge success with everyone in the office. The title of the article is "I Was Jewish For Six Months", which reveals to everyone who thought Philip was Jewish that he is, in fact, not. Dave meets with Kathy at a restaurant and she tells him how she would hear a bigoted joke and hate how everyone else would laugh at it. Dave asks her what she did about it. She did nothing. It dawns on her that doing nothing and ignoring the problem only exacerbates the problem. Everyone will continue to practice anti-Semitism as long as people like herself do nothing to prevent or debate it. She offers the house to Dave, who accepts. Kathy will move to Connecticut as well and live with her sister to make sure Dave and his family are treated well. Philip learns of this from Dave and is convinced by Dave (with little resistance) to go get her back. Philip and Kathy reconcile.
While there was some criticism of the film's actual and overall depiction of how anti-Semitism existed during this time (one of the main critiques being that Philip Green would be so naïve about how rampant anti-Semitism was around him), reception to the film was overwhelmingly positive, and it did indeed open many people's eyes to just how much of an issue this was and how it needed to be stopped. The film also angered many, most notably those amongst the House Un-American Activities Committee. Several years after this film was released, Director Elia Kazan, along with Zanuck, Revere and Garfield all were called to testify before the Committee and clear their names. Revere refused to testify, and Garfield refused to name names. Both were blacklisted and Garfield tragically died of a heart attack a year later which was believed to be greatly brought upon by stress related to this. Zanuck was cleared. Kazan was as well, but years later did testify and erroneously name names, which caused him to be criticized for the rest of his life. (Kazan was given an Honorary Oscar in 1999 but not everyone in the audience stood and/or applauded when he received the award. Images of Ed Harris and Nick Nolte sitting angrily with their arms crossed remain embedded in my own memory.)
Ultimately, Gentleman's Agreement was a success and was accepted by the ultimate judges, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The film was nominated for eight Oscars and won three of them. The film won Best Picture (up against The Bishop's Wife, Crossfire, Great Expectations and Miracle on 34th Street), and Kazan was honored as Best Director. The third win was for Celeste Holm as Best Supporting Actress, and her performance was great and a lot of fun, but as you may notice, I never even mentioned her during the movie synopsis. Her character ultimately really doesn't affect the main plot, and I just never found a place to stick mentioning her character into my above synopsis without it just being an obvious "oh, by the way, here's Celeste Holm as Anne", so take that for what it's worth. Other nominations were for Peck, McGuire, Reeves, editor Harmon Jones and screenwriter Moss Hart. This is a film that still resonates today because unfortunately, while we as a society have come a very long way from the prejudices that existed a century ago, there still is a very long way to go. We can view this in 2014 and do the same soul-searching of ourselves and others that people did when they viewed this in 1947. For that reason, Gentleman's Agreement is truly a timeless classic.
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